After Such Kindness (29 page)

‘Oh, Robert,’ I cry. ‘You don’t understand! The smiles are the worst. As if he is being kind and gentle, when all the time –’ My chest begins to constrict and I can hardly breathe as I think of it.

Robert encircles my shoulder and brings me even closer. I endure the smell of camphor as best I can. Perhaps now, at last, he will understand.

‘Poor Margaret,’ he says. ‘I suspected that the burden would be too great for you. I said so to your mother at the time. Some days when I came to the house I thought you didn’t even recognize me. But then it seemed, once your father had gone away, that you were like a new person and I was confident that all those anxieties had quite disappeared. You should have told me that it was not the case; we could have prayed together. And we still can. You mustn’t mind it, Margaret; you mustn’t mind any of it. It will go away in due course.’

‘Will it?’ I want so much to believe him, to know that it is only time and a little prayer that is required to shake off these waking nightmares and melt away all my dreadful imaginings. I tell myself it is my fault for reading Daisy’s journal; it has inflamed my brain and allowed the Devil to do his work. I don’t like to think that I could have conjured such images out of nothing, but if I
haven’t
conjured them up, the prospect is far, far worse. I can’t control the shudder that runs through me.

Robert feels it, squeezes my hands. ‘Peace will come to you, Margaret. Believe me.’

‘But supposing,’ I murmur. ‘Supposing
I’m
the one who is guilty of a sin? Maybe even a mortal sin? Supposing
I’m
the one who’s spun wicked thoughts and done wicked deeds – things you won’t forgive me for?’

‘
You?
’ He laughs. ‘Nonsense.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t dismiss me in that manner,’ I say. ‘It’s as if you think I’m incapable of judging my own faults.’

He starts at the sharpness in my tone. ‘I did not mean to dismiss you, Margaret. I simply mean that I hold such a high opinion of you that I couldn’t imagine –’

‘I wish you wouldn’t hold such an opinion, then. I’d rather you thought me a sinner. I’d rather you weren’t quite so patient with me all the time!’

That has come out badly and he’s disconcerted. He loosens his hold on me. ‘You want me to be
less
patient? Forgive me, but it has been you who has asked – nay, begged – that I exercise that very virtue in respect of you. And now you blame me for it!’

He’s right, of course. I am making no sense. ‘You are too saintly for me,’ I say in the end. ‘I don’t deserve it.’

‘Saintly? Oh, Margaret, I’m a man like any other, as vain and venal as it is possible to be. Look how I just now chastised you in front of Minnie. I didn’t intend to do it, but my pride was dented and I allowed it to overrule me.’

‘But that’s such a small thing, Robert. I wish a sharp word was all I had to confess. But I’m afraid there is something bad I’ve done as a child. I’ve been reading my old journal and –’

‘Your journal? So that’s what all this paper is!’ He laughs and picks up a page at random. ‘Good heavens, you must have been very young when you wrote this. Look, you still sign yourself “Daisy”.’

‘Even Daisy might have done wrong,’ I say.

‘In principle, no doubt.’ He smiles. ‘We are all born sinners, after all. But, in truth, what sins could you have committed when you were – what? Ten? Eleven? Cross words, perhaps? Little untruths, or failure to say your prayers? Well, I forgive you those, if you need forgiving.’

It’s as if I am calling to him from a distant shore in a language he doesn’t understand. I have to persist, though. I take his hand in mine. ‘Robert, supposing – just for a moment – that I had committed sins that were much worse than you imagine? Sins that are preventing me being a proper wife to you?’

‘I’d forgive you, of course.’ It comes out so pat. ‘But you’ve lived in the bosom of a God-fearing family all your life. How could you have committed any real sins?’

‘But if I had – would it change your feelings for me?’

‘There is nothing that would change my feelings for you, Margaret.’ He gives me his most brilliant smile.

‘Nothing? Are you sure, Robert? Absolutely, completely sure?’

His brilliant smile is somewhat fixed now. ‘Good heavens, what is this catechism of “just suppose” all about?’ he says. ‘Truly, my dear, it’s rather silly, and I think you should stop it straight away.’

I see that he is uncomfortable with the notion that I have sins; they spoil his idea of me. But if we are to start afresh in our marriage, I must speak what is in my mind, truth or not. ‘Please, Robert, there are things I need to tell you. I’m not altogether sure about them. But you might wish you hadn’t married me when you know.’

‘I think that unlikely, unless – good heavens, you’re not by any chance married to someone else, are you?’ He pretends to think this very amusing.

But I won’t be stopped. I warm to my theme now, the accumulated despair of seven weeks rushing to the surface. ‘But supposing there
is
a part of me you don’t know about – some secret I haven’t told you? Supposing I am not quite as I should be? Supposing that’s what’s stopping me from being your wife in more than name?’

He laughs, uneasily this time. ‘Come now, Margaret.’

‘I won’t “come now”!’ My voice rises as the words spill out. ‘Supposing there is an impediment, Robert? An impediment that cannot be overcome? Perhaps that is the cause of all our difficulties. Maybe I will never be able to love you. Maybe you should cast me off. You can annul a marriage that’s not been consummated – there’ll be no disgrace to you. You can say I am mad – just like my father.’

‘Quiet, I beg you!’ He glances at the door. In a low voice he says, ‘Are you really telling me that you wish to end our marriage?’

‘No, Robert, I don’t wish to. But it may be for the best.’

‘I see. I suppose the truth of the matter is that you find me repellent.’ A flush creeps over his cheeks.

I want to deny it, to spare him more misery; but I cannot separate him in my mind from Papa – Papa with his ticking watch; Papa with his hands around my waist; Papa in his nightshirt, pulling me onto his lap. And I know it was the sight of Robert in his nightshirt that so horrified me on our wedding night. Even before the glimpse of his naked skin and bushy hair. And I begin to shake even now to think of his dark and secret body beneath his respectable clergyman’s clothes; the waxy flesh under the thick layers of serge and linen. ‘No, Robert,’ I say, trying to find the words to console him. ‘It is not exactly that.’

‘Not
exactly
?’ He laughs a short and mirthless laugh. ‘Hardly an extravagant compliment. We men have our pride, you know. We like to think we are attractive to our wives.’

‘You
are
attractive, Robert. You are kind and good and –’ I cast about for what to say. ‘– And you are very nice-looking, too.’

‘Nice-looking! Well, Margaret, forgive me, but when a man’s had to watch his wife sheltering under the bed on her wedding night it’s hard to believe that she finds him “nice-looking”! When she refuses to kiss him or even to hold his hand, it is hard to believe she finds him appealing in any way!’

My voice rises again. ‘Why won’t you
understand
? It’s Papa. He’s the one who’s coming between us. Oh, please make him go away, Robert! I don’t want him near me any more!’ I start to weep, noisily. The tears gush down my cheeks in torrents and run into my mouth as I gasp and sob, gasp and sob.

He is alarmed now. ‘Please, Margaret, take a deep breath. You are near to being hysterical.’ He releases his hold on me and takes out his pocket-handkerchief. I watch him shake out the neat folds before he wipes my cheeks. ‘Now, listen to me. You have allowed your imagination to get the better of you and have started believing the most ridiculous things. The “difficulty” in our marriage has nothing to do with any sins you may have committed as a child – except in your mind. That is where you are at fault. That is where your thoughts are disarrayed.
I
do not blame you, and therefore there is no need to blame yourself. If misplaced blame has been holding you back from loving me, I’m sure our problem can be resolved in no time at all. There will be no need for doctors.’

‘It’s not misplaced blame, Robert.’ I sob, wishing he would listen before jumping to conclusions.

‘Well, maybe that is not the only reason. You are young and fragile and your fear of the conjugal act is understandable. But I am sure the Harley Street man will set your mind at rest on matters of – well, on any matter of concern. And I have been reading some books on the subject – books I should have consulted earlier – and I realize a woman must not be pressed. She must be allowed to ready herself for her wifely duties in her own time. Preparation is necessary: a light diet, loose clothes, meditation. One should not rush into things on the wedding night so soon after all the exhaustion of the preparations: the ceremony, the wedding breakfast and so forth. And one needs to ration one’s resources; abstinence should be practised even within marriage in order to protect the woman’s health. I have been too hasty, I see. I have only thought of myself. If it is anyone’s fault, it is mine.’

All the time he’s been drying my tears, I’ve been obliged to study his face at close quarters. There are flecks of yellow in the brown of his irises, a small round mole near his eyebrow, and a patch of reddened skin where he has shaved too close around his mouth and chin. I’m shocked that I’ve never seen these imperfections before; it comes home to me that I have never really looked at him as a woman should look at her lover, with an eye for every detail of his face and body. I’ve drifted through our courtship like a dream-girl. And Robert never broke into that dream; content, it seemed, with soft words and shy smiles. And I suppose I must have imagined that married life would go on like that – that we would lie side by side in our bed-gowns and chatter inconsequentially into the small hours; that he would make buttercup crowns for me and place them chastely on my head before turning over to pursue an innocent sleep; or that we would kiss in bird-pecks like Hansel and Gretel in the wood. I must have kept everything else at bay – happy simply to envisage new clothes, wedding presents, and the pleasure of leaving my mother’s house. Poor Robert, as he watched me come to him with orange blossom in my hair, could have had no idea what an unprepared wife I would turn out to be. And for my own part, I had no premonitions, no fears, no misgivings. I might have been setting out on a summer picnic. No shadow of the past even crossed my mind. But my ignorance is not Robert’s fault, and I need to be the one to make amends.

‘Dear Robert.’ I put my hand up to his face, tracing the shape of the little mole. ‘You are so good and patient. I will do whatever you say. I will forget my foolish thoughts. I will see the doctor and do whatever he recommends.’

He smiles. ‘I am so glad. So very glad. We will triumph, Margaret. We will triumph.’ He brings his own hand up to meet mine, running his lips lightly over my fingers – so lightly it tickles. I am surprised to find that, having no expectation that it will lead to anything else, I almost enjoy the sensation. A slip of fire threads through my abdomen. We sit in silence for a while, and I think that maybe things will resolve themselves as he says, with time and patience, with light diets and loose clothing, and the careful advice of the Harley Street man.

‘Now, my dear,’ he murmurs. ‘If it is not too prosaic a point, I think we might allow ourselves to get up from the floor. It’s unseemly to be crouching here – and a little hard on the joints.’ He rises, puts out his arms and lifts me up so we are both standing on the scattered contents of the journal. His heel almost skewers a piece of card lying face down, and he stoops to retrieve it.

But I have already seen what it is. As I catch sight of the scratched and battered backing with
Daisy 1862
written on it, I remember – oh dear God, I remember – the day I came into Papa’s study, and all the photographs I’d secreted in my journal were laid upon his desk, like a dreadful game of patience. And there was Papa standing behind the desk, staring at them and then at me, as if to be sure that I was the same girl, in my cotton dress and pinafore, as the angels and nymphs and flower-girls that lay so artfully in front of him. I thought he would surely punish me most severely for keeping such a secret and I was unable to speak for fear. His face seemed quite flushed, but he put his arms around me and said, ‘Well, Daisy, you have clearly been a beautiful angel for John. I think you must be an angel for me, too.’ But, although he was not at all cross and said there was nothing at all wrong, my clothes seemed to burn me with shame as I took them off.

Robert must not see the picture. I try to pull it from his grasp. But he thinks I am teasing, and holds it away from me, laughing. ‘Please don’t look at it!’ I cry.

But Robert laughs again. He wants to see, he says. He turns it over, full of delighted anticipation. He expects a shy little girl in a pretty dress. The shock almost floors him. ‘Good God,’ he exclaims, and sits down suddenly upon the bed. There is a long silence. His gaze seems fixed to the photograph, as if mesmerized. Then, after a long while: ‘Who on earth took this?’

‘A man called John Jameson,’ I say lightly. ‘He was a friend of Papa’s.’

‘I know who he is. He is the best-known man in Oxford. But he is a respectable man in Holy Orders.’ He shakes his head, as if it is beyond imagining.

‘But what is the matter?’ I ask.

‘You are naked,’ he says.

‘I was being a cherub,’ I say, attempting lightness. ‘You see, I have wings.’ Although I can’t help thinking that the feathers look rather forlorn, now.

Robert holds the photograph by the corners, as if it is contaminated. ‘But why on earth are you
smiling
like that?’ His voice is shaking.

‘Smiling?’ I’m surprised he thinks that. John Jameson told me never to smile when he was taking a photograph. He said smiles had the habit of looking fixed if they were held for more than ten seconds. I have a very candid expression, admittedly, and there is perhaps just the hint of a smile. ‘I don’t know, Robert,’ I say. ‘Perhaps I was happy. Mr Jameson usually made me happy.’